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Topic: Pressing Esc to Halt a Redraw. (Read 101 times)

I can remember a time when Esc did not help but for many recent years and computers it did work for me. Back when it did not work it could have been due to one of the reasons described below.

1] Graphics Card(?)If Esc doesn't work for you it could be your graphics card. My current card is Intel HD Graphics.

2] Number of windows open in dcad.With multiple windows dcad cycles through each window, redrawing each one multiple times. Pressing Esc halts which ever window is being redrawn at that instant then another window may start. You have to press Exc at least once for every window. Allow a slight pause between presses.

3] Blocks and SymbolsEsc halts the redraw after the currently-being-redrawn-entity is completed. For most entities this happens very quickly but block and symbols can contain any number of entities and they will all be redrawn since together they are one entity. It also appears that the Esc press may not register during such a redraw so you may have to press again after the block/symbol is completed.

4] HatchesJust this week I discovered that Hatches also negates an Esc press. I guess hatches fall into the same category as blocks/hatches because they are really just a lot of lines that dcad manipulates together. A single hatch that is busy and/or of a very small scale always takes a long while to redraw and you just have to wait for it to finish. It also appears that if you have a series of hatches you will have to wait for them all to redraw befor pressing Esc (a series of dimensions and multi-line text does not appear to have the same effect).

6. Paperspace View FramesEsc will halt the redraw within a p-space frame but then the next frame will begin, so you have to press for every frame on the page. There are some previous versions of dcad that when printing from p-space will calculate and print every view frame in the drawing (not just on the current page). I don't know if this affects using Esc to halt the redraws.

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I can even halt a shaded drawing. With GDI I can see the redraw and Esc will stop it in its tracks and I will see gaps for stuff not shaded yet. With OpenGL I will only see the redraw once it's completed, so for a while it appears nothing is happening. However, if I press Esc during this time the screen will reappear with only the stuff that is completed and as if the not completed stuff does not exist (ie, no gaps).

I would advise never to ever press Esc when the cursor is busy (spinning). This usually causes dcad to crash on my machine(s). If it's been spinning a long time pressing the x in the upper right corner usually causes dcad to shut down. If that doesn't work use the Task Manager.Also, never press Esc while a drawing is loading (if dcad allows it). It may appear to halt the redraw but it will actually halt the loading of the entities, so if you save afterwards those unloaded entities will be lost.

Are you saying that some version of DesignCAD now actually stops redrawing when you press ESCape?

It seems to me that in past versions when the "Press ESC to stop redraw" message appears in the status bar, pressing ESC only stops the redraw of the object currently being drawn. But the program then continues to redraw the next item, and so on, until the entire redraw is finished.

With really large drawings, where the redraw may take an hour or more, it is faster to use Task Manager to shut down the program, restart it and reload the drawing. But only if you have saved the drawing before the redraw starts.

Are you saying that some version of DesignCAD now actually stops redrawing when you press ESCape?

Phil, I'm saying for many a versions my dcad would actually stops a redraw. Sometimes with one click, sometimes with more than one, depending on the circumstances as described in my opening post.

I can remember a time when it didn't work, starting when I first tried it a few times, and not using it again for a long time after that. But, at some point, about 5 or more years ago, I was using it consistently and right now I can't recall how I transitioned from one state to the other.